New Directions

I've had a lot of fun on Creativebug.com classes these last few months.

These days I'm doing a six-week creativity class called "Creative Bootcamp", taught by Lisa Congdon, one of my favourite artists and instructors.

This week - the 2nd in the series - the assignment consisted of making our own coloured paper, then using it in a collage.

Painting the paper took a whole day! I used some full-size sheets of multimedia paper cut into four. That inexpensive paper took the washes really well -- I must replenish my supply.

And instead of being boring, covering sheets and sheets with those pretty watercolours was strangely satisfying. I loved the resulting textures. (If you click on the pictures you can see what I mean.)

After making the set, I had to choose only six colours for my project.

This is the "paper rainbow" that I produced:

These are the paints that I used (clockwise beginning with the violet):

• Amethyst Genuine (Daniel Smith)
• Prussian Blue (Holbein)
• Cobalt Teal Blue (Daniel Smith)*
• Cobalt Teal Blue - more dilute (Daniel Smith)*
• Prussian Blue with various additions to make dark green (Holbein etc.)*
• Viridian (Winsor & Newton)
• Sap Green (M. Graham) plus Aureolin (Winsor & Newton)*
• Aureolin (Winsor & Newton)
• Cadmium Yellow Deep  (Da Vinci)*
• Cadmium Yellow Deep - less dilute (Da Vinci)*
• Brown Madder (Winsor & Newton)
• Cadmium Scarlet - one thin coat and one thick coat (Winsor & Newton)*
• Rose Madder (Holbein)*
• Rose Madder Genuine (Winsor & Newton)
• Off to the side: Payne's Grey (Maimeri)

Colours with an asterisk are the ones I used for the assignment. 

Using only those papers, I made this collage:

As I wrote in my description in the course Gallery, next time I will spend more time planning the different layers, but for a first real collage painting, I am rather satisfied about how it came out. I believe I achieved a good composition and colour balance, which were the main items to look out for.

Now I look forward to the next lesson!

Learning How To Draw Food Is Fun!!

Some of my best memories as a French chef have to do with how beautiful food can look. Not as an elaborate finished dish--in its natural state.

Let's face it: food is beautiful!

I remember so vividly the huge stock pot with its vegetables and herbs floating on top. The trays of strawberries at the farmers' market where I went every day when I had my first restaurant. The displays at the cheese shop. A colourful salad.

After that, when I travelled through Europe, I marvelled at the variety and artistry of the fruit and vegetable displays in Italy, and wondered at the immense piles of parsley at the public market in Ibiza. What on earth did the Catalans make that required so much parsley?

From chef to food illustrator seemed like a natural transition, so when I found out about Koosje Koene's Draw It Like It's Hot, I just had to sign up. $69 for four weeks: my kind of price!

The first week of the current session ends tomorrow. For my first week's assignments, I submitted these two sketches:

"Shopping List" - Did you notice it's in alphabetical order?

"Afternoon Snack" - The real point of this is the reflection of the outdoor scene in the knife.

I am doing all my sketches for these classes in a new Strathmore Series 500 Mixed Media Sketchbook, 5 ½" by 8" (14 by 20 cm). It's not perfect, and the "portrait" format is a nice change from the Moleskine's "landscape" orientation, but the Moleskine's paper is better for wet media.

These few weeks of art classes are the most fun I've had in a long, long time!

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Watercolour Classes in Montreal

Now that I've let off steam about my recent workshop experiences, I can set free my enthusiasm for next month's watercolour classes at the Visual Arts Centre, in Montreal.

This will be the second year that I spend a month in my hometown of Montreal, visiting with family and taking some classes. Last year, I studied Dreamweaver and Photoshop at Concordia University, and a watercolour class, given by Stephanie Reynolds, at the Visual Arts Centre.

The class was at night and I was so tired from those full-time courses at Concordia that I didn't really produce very much. My best work was Montreal Cityscape. I also remember a still life with a disastrous red cabbage and some really nice blueberries.

But I came back more determined than ever to play with watercolours (with which I had had a brief encounter in Mexico 15 years earlier) and to try and master this most difficult of mediums. Almost as soon as I was back home, I ordered all sorts of books, set up a studio space, and started this blog.

I also resolved to take no other classes but watercolour this summer. So, as soon as the Visual Arts Centre's summer program was published, I registered for two of Lorna Mulligan's classes: Watercolour Plants and Flowers, and The Essential Sketchbook.

I hope Ms. Mulligan the teacher lives up to the admiration I have for her as an artist. And I hope to have some time to practice in-between all the other activities that I have planned for the month!

I'll let you know how it went.

French Townscape, a Fun Exercise

French Townscape, watercolor on paper, 9" x 12"

This French townscape is the second of Allan Kirk's free tutorials. It was quite a bit more challenging than the window one I did last week, but I really enjoyed doing it.

I was feeling guilty for all the copying, but then I remembered that all the great painters started out by copying the great masters. The important thing is to only copy good stuff, I feel, and so I'm going to stay away from overly simplified beginners' lessons, lest I acquire bad habits.

Yesterday, I ordered a mat, just to have it around when I look at my finished paintings. It makes such a difference, don't you think? The only problem is that I can't scan the pictures, I have to photograph them. But that's okay, I've been having trouble getting the scanner to render the colours and the sharpness, lately.

The fellow cut the mat too big, so he made me a second one, and threw the first one in for free. He charged me $5. It seemed like a lot for just one, just right for two I think.

When I get good enough to show my paintings, I'll get a mat cutter and cut my own mats. A big sheet of mat board costs $14 and you get six single mats of this size out of it.